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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE THREEFOLD 
PATH TO PEACE 

WRITTEN DOWN BY XENA /\ 

Dedicated to Disciples 




THE GRAFTON PRESS 

New York 



or nil 



\ T*D .:iop!es i?ecetV9<! 
\ OCT 15 1304 
I -,<'Kiovrfehl 




COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY 

THE GRAFTON PRESS 



CONTENTS. 











Page 


Preface ..... 
[ntroduction : To the Disciple 






5 

7 


I. 


Vibrations 






9 


II. 


The Consecration of Life 






II 


III. 


The Soul's Road . 






IS 


IV. 


Unity .... 






i8 


V. 


Renunciation 






22 


VI. 


" Two or Three " . 






25 


VII. 


Love's Vehicles 






28 


VIII. 


The Power of Love. 






32 


IX. 


The Law of Growth 






36 


X. 


Love's Trinity 






39 


XI. 


The Lonely Way . 






42 


XII. 


Purity .... 






45 


XIII, 


The Perfect Deed. 






48 


XIV. 


Self-Expression 






51 


XV. 


Love Universal 






55 


XVI. 


The Farewell Word . 






58 



PREFACE 

A FEW words should accompany this little book, 
words of explanation and of hope. 
During the winter of 1903-04 a small group of ear- 
nest students met for the study of Spiritual Laws and 
of their application to every day life. Among them 
was one who, as Disciple, had been trained to listen 
for the Inner Voice. The Disciple solicited guid- 
ance before the meetings of the group, and weekly as 
the appointed day came, heard and wrote down the 
lessons contained in this volume. As they proved 
helpful to the students, it was resolved, in grateful 
acknowledgment of the Guidance vouchsafed, to offer 
them to a wider public, and they are, therefore, pre- 
sented as they were given, without comment or further 
introduction. 

To those who received them, fresh from the Stream 
as it were, they were a source of continual encourage- 
ment and an incentive to further effort ; many difificult 
steps in the Higher Path were the easier for their 
inspiration ; and when the farewell words were given, 
it was realized that a parting of the ways could lead 
only to wider knowledge and deeper experience. 



6 PREFACE 

So may this little book go forth, and may it bring to 
all who seek, the strength, the peace, the blessedness, 
its words of wisdom gave to those who, striving to 
hear the Voice, herewith endeavor to obey its teachings 
and give, even as they have received. 

XENA A 
New York City, 
June 5, 1904. 



INTRODUCTION 

TO THE DISCIPLE 

'X'O catch the fleeting whisper of the Master, hold 
thyself free. The lower self tends to con- 
traction, the Higher ever expands, that it may wing 
its way to that which is Itself. 

Vibration is the way, but the entrance upon the way 
is through that narrow gate which is in reality the con- 
traction of all currents into one. The outflowing 
Spirit, in its etheric vibration, enters everywhere, but 
those coarser vibrations to which man's mind responds 
are in their nature constrictive, that is, in propor- 
tion as thought coheres vibration is tense, and must 
be so. 

When, therefore, desire awakens for higher knowl- 
edge, the intensity of the desire brings about a 
contraction of vibratory currents. They draw, as it 
were, to a point, and the demand made of the neo- 
phyte is that he shall, at one and the same time, 
ardently desire, and yet overcome the constriction 
that his own desire has brought about. This he can 
only do by at once desiring and rising above the desire 



8 INTRODUCTION 

— by striving and, at the same time, relaxing. The 
camel must enter the eye of the needle! 

Now, the constructive element in Nature is 
that desire which, calls to itself that which it needs 
for expression. The body itself is built up in 
response to desires that bring together the necessary 
elements. And as it is with the body, so it is with 
the inner man, who, by desire, attracts to himself ever 
finer particles, which respond to finer vibrations. 

When the inner man has arisen to a full conception 
of his right to demand entrance to the world of the 
spiritual plane, his task is twofold. He must so draw 
together his desires as to make them one ; he must 
contract ; all his energies must come to a focus, as it 
were, in order that he may pierce through their 
activity, the narrow opening ; but, at the same time, 
he must himself be, at core, free even from the desire. 
In other words, he must be at once master and ser- 
vant — master in expansion, servant in contraction. 

So shall he enter the Divine Flame, so shall the 
Divine Flame receive him. So shall every selfish, con- 
tracting vibration find its death, so shall every aspiring 
vibration enter into partnership with all that, as Flame, 
vibrates. Free, the inner man shall travel on the Path, 
the selfish remaining ever bound by his desire. 



IN TERMS OF VIBRATION 

TT is wise to cling to the idea of Triune Vibration ex- 
pressed as differentiation of vibrations. It is true 
that science recognizes seven variations, but these seven 
are at best but multiples or derivations from the three 
which we may call primitive. 

Conceive then of unity, and for diversity take three 
discords, each representing vibrations of a different 
rate. You cannot readily conceive of these three as 
starting simultaneously. The three are one, it is true, 
in essence, but not, if you can so phrase it, in impulse. 
The earliest is the most rapid, say, super-etheric ; the 
second is etheric ; the third is atmospheric, through 
and only by means of it the super-etheric vibration 
can find vent. Coarse as atmospheric vibrations are, 
it is only by and through them that finer vibrations 
can find play. 

We may then say that the physical body is the repre- 
sentative of the last impulse, the spiritual body of the 
second, the soul itself of the first ; in other words, the 
three in one are body, spiritual body, soul, of which 
each in its own way is the vehicle of the three im- 
pulses of the ever non-vibrant God, i. e., of that which. 



lo THREE-FOLD PATH OF PEACE 

in itself free from change, produces or permits vibra- 
tion. 

When you have thoroughly mastered this fact as 
scientific, you will see that soul life, spiritual conscious- 
ness, and physical existence are three notes in one 
chord, each responding to the vibratory impulse of the 
great Origination (Cause), and you will further see, in 
comprehending that, that these three notes demand 
for full expression a moral, a spiritual, and a divine 
purpose. The realm or kingdom of the physical body 
demands of its lord or ruler morality, the spiritual body 
demands of its owner the cadence of a spiritual life, 
the soul claims divine atmosphere. 

What are these three ? The first is love of self for 
self-attainment. The second is love of others for self- 
government. The third is love of God for return to or 
union with its like. Love of self for self-attainment 
demands a moral life, the life of training. Love of 
others demands a spiritual life, the life of sacrifice. 
Love of God demands a life of aspiration, in which 
the finest vibrations shall respond to and lead to the 
Divine Source. 

Three, then, are the streams, three the vehicles of 
the streams, threefold the purpose and expression. 
As man, as spirit, as the Divine or God, shall impulse 
from the primary source express itself and show forth 
the triune nature of being, or, if you will, the three 
aspects of the Logos. 



II 

THE CONSECRATION OF LIFE 

'T^HE consecration of life to the highest purpose implies 
sacrifice. There is indeed no progress without 
it, and the reason is simple. To attain a higher plane 
means to become sensible of higher vibration, to respond 
to it, to be, in a sense, one with it. As in natural life the 
physical body is attuned to a key of its own and pro- 
claims by pain and sickness any deviation from it, so in 
the atmosphere of the astral and spiritual any want of 
concord is immediately recognized by the soul. To 
escape from the discords of one plane only to encounter 
discord on another is not advance. It may be growth, 
but there is such a thing as one-sided growth, or de- 
formity and this is very plainly evidenced in the 
case of many who seek a home in the astral. They 
establish correspondences there, as it were, but fail to 
realize that in the ever changing currents of the astra 
plane they are swept hither and thither and meet with 
misadventures of a misleading kind. 

When through many sad experiences the spirit has 
grown wise, when, in fact, the soul is thoroughly 



12 THREE-FOLD PATH OF PEACE 

awakened and no longer responds to mere pleasurable 
vibrations, it enters upon the search for the highest 
good conceivable to it. This it realizes can only be- 
come its own by union with that which lures it onwards 
and upwards. What is this ? You have heard of those 
Rays of the Highest Self to which we claim to belong. 
You have been taught that, when the ego has once 
entered upon the cycle of experience, it must encoun- 
ter many different phases of that experience. It is 
indeed only fully born into any one of the higher planes 
of consciousness when previous experience has pre- 
pared it for the step. It is in reality not even a monad 
until seons have separated it from the primary impulse. 
Is it then any marvel that the memory of its origin is 
lost to it? 

By countless experiences, by myriad steps upon the 
descending ladder or spiral, the monad at length 
reaches its purely physical experience. As man, it is 
child of its race, inheritor of accumulated knowledge, 
fitted for its own place. But it is yet more. Within 
it still vibrates that primary impulse which was not 
of matter, but which in the ages has so associated 
itself with coarse elements that it is, as it were, lost in 
them. Sorrow alone arouses it, and that sorrow is a 
discord, which impels it to reflect. 

In the same way the fear of death, the horror of dis- 
solution that shall render all vibration again discord- 
ant, is one of the first factors in higher experience. 



THE CONSECRATION OF LIFE 13 

The soul longs for life, and from this longing hope is 
engendered. 

In hope and fear vibrations change, and through 
harmony and dissonance an atmosphere is created in 
which, as time passes, man lives mentally. Light and 
shadow, hope and fear intermingle, a new harmony is 
born, and the monad becomes an entity, and with 
individual tendencies follows where his desires lead, 
and thus becomes allied to the second plane of being, 
the astral, so-called. 

But no permanent satisfaction is ever attained there. 
" Under each blossom," as the Silent Voice has said, 
" lurks a serpent," the serpent of selfish desire, of 
longing for self satisfaction in some form. " Higher 
still and higher must thou mount for Love," In the 
astral thou canst attain union with that which is of 
time, but for eternal union the astral plane offers no 
guarantee. There all is change, and that which to- 
day greeted thee as response to honest desire shall 
to-morrow not know thee nor be known of thee. 
There vibration is no longer so coarse as with thee 
here, but it is as eternally subject to the law of change. 
No abiding place is there for thee, nor satisfaction for 
thy aspirations. 

It is not until the soul cognizes spirit that it is in 
sight of its home, but when once its desire has turned 
thitherward, all is within its reach, all awaits it, until 
when it awakens upon the borderland of eternity, it 



14 THREE-FOLD PATH OF PEACE 

no longer knows pleasure or pain, happiness or misery, 
but is in Bliss, is one with that from which it separated 
in the myriad ages of the long ago. Faintly indeed 
and at long intervals does the soul recognize its home, 
slowly with divine longing memory re-awakens, and 
the past, buried amid many ruins, issues from its hiding 
place and takes on form. " The Soul remembers ! " 

No accent of pure melody can escape, but as the 
forgotten becomes the known the soul realizes all that 
its past has held of profit and of loss. It knows not 
only that which it has survived but that Self which it 
has built up as instrument, which has now again become 
one with the Eternal Source whence it escaped in the 
long ago. And as the soul remembers, radiance floods 
it, light too blinding for the outer sight dazzles it, for 
in its full realization it not only knows, which is joy, 
but receives the complete assurance that if is known, 
which is the perfect fulfilment of its highest aspiration. 



Ill 

THE SOUL'S ROAD 

T^HE Soul's Road is determined by its Intention. 
One may set out to discover a continent, heedless 
of that which awaits one in the going. In a general 
way it will be planned for, so much provision, so many 
clothes, so many associates, but with all the prepara- 
tion the unforeseen will happen. And so it is here, but, 
as with persistence a goal will be reached, if it exist, 
so surely will it be attained here, and of its existence 
there need be no question. It is only necessary to 
cling to the intention, and to be, in so clinging, one- 
pointed in mind and of one-ideal in soul. 

There is a distinction upon which we ask you to 
dwell to-day. The mind is more easily awakened than 
the soul, it finds its vibratory correspondences more 
readily, but, although awakened easily, its I'esponse is 
not so true, for it is, at best, a reflecting instrument. 
The soul is awakened with greater difficulty, it sleeps 
in many all through the earth life, great shocks are 
often needed to arouse it, but once aroused its course 
is less errant than that of the mind, and it is in this 
fact that your hope is found. 



i6 THREE-FOLD PATH OF PEACE 

To all of you the fact of the soul's awakening is 
already known — none of you are asleep — but the soul 
must build up its own vehicle, as the mind has already 
done ; it must have its perfect instrument. You have 
been taught that the three chords of body, mind, and 
soul must vibrate in harmony, but this harmony is, in 
fact, dependent upon the soul, which is now in com- 
mand. Body and mind must follow the note the soul 
utters. In other words, the Intention of the soul 
must be carried out by its partners, and the reason it 
is easier for the soul than the mind lies precisely 
here — the mind responds to many vibratory currents, 
the soul responds only to the harmony of its own note. 
It is not carried away from its intention. 

We would say in words familiar to you, aspire and 
you shall grow. You cannot, by the law of soul life, 
remain in its kingdom without that which is the 
equivalent of breath in the physical world. As the 
lungs must breathe that you may have life, so must 
the soul aspire that it, too, may have a fuller existence 
now and here, that it may become strong in an alien 
environment ; and as it gains this strength the waves 
of the outer life may pass over it, may beat against it 
but it will not heed them. Alone, self-centered, yet 
diffused, it will remain the stronghold of its own hope 
and the safeguard of all others who may temporarily 
enter into relationship with it. It will live by its own 
aim, grow by its own will, radiate through its own 



THE SOUL'S ROAD 17 

love, and, as time passes, its Light will be seen and 
recognized of all men, for, for them no less than for 
itself, it shines. 

And the radiance of the soul's Light is dependent, 
when all has been said, upon the Intention which 
awakened it and which forever individualizes it, differ- 
entiates it from all others, and yet makes it one with 
every other aspiring, longing, loving soul either in 
your world or ours. 



IV 

UNITY 

T TNDER the symbol of the O we conceive of unity. 
Think, then, as you gather together, of that 
entrance into the perfected life that comes of union. 
The two or three united in one effort are the physical 
representatives of the three in one. 

And in unity there is power. As each of your circle 
in aspiration gives forth the force which is spirit, that 
force, through sympathetic and similar vibrations 
enters upon and interpenetrates that which it meets. 
In aspirations the soul grows because it is, as it were, 
breathing in its own atmosphere. Aspiration is the 
life force of the soul, and as in your world, if you 
desire to overcome obstacles, you make a combined 
effort, so in our plane we meet together in aspiration 
to receive and increase our power. 

Your circle, must represent combined aspirations, and 
these aspirations must not be of a personal character. 
It is not that"/" maybe pure, but that purity as a 
force may dominate the group. As the ascent of 
smoke or steam, so is the uprising of the power of the 
soul. It rises to that plane which accords with its vib- 



UNITY 19 

ration and then dissipates its energies as a cloud or 
mist would do in a rarefied atmosphere. 

Aspiration is thought transmuted into power, and 
this transmutation is perfect in proportion to the effort 
and sincerity of the soul's desire. Many desires are 
like many streams of water. They run side by side but 
no power eventuates. They cleanse, they renew in a 
certain way, but they do not uplift or, as it were, add 
wings for the soul's use. One deeply seated, con- 
scious desire is power, as one stream of water is poten- 
tially, and if persisted in, will in time meet and bring 
back by its own inherent force the object of its search. 

But this is not the work of the higher vehicle. 
Rather it is the natural result, if we can so phrase it, 
of instinctive effort as compared with the effect of an 
act of conscious will. As in a child's life the differ- 
ence is plain between the merely instinctive efforts 
that accomplish natural desires and the early awaken- 
ing of a personal will, so in the soul's life there is the 
difference between desire that is instinctive expression, 
and aspiration that is the conscious effort of the will. 

Aspire ! Aspire ! Aspire ! And so in triple measure 
will the response be — increase of Will, of Love, of 
Wisdom. And this increase will not be concrete, it will 
be permeation or atmosphere, or, as you would say in 
your world, force, perhaps. What exercise is to the 
body aspiration is to the soul, and as you might say 
that you realize increase of strength through exercise 



20 THREE-FOLD PATH OF PEACE 

but know it only in results, so in the soul's life you can 
recognize the power of aspiration only in growth as a 
whole. 

In your group life, the force of your aspirations will 
determine your lives, not in detail perhaps but in direc- 
tion, which in the long run governs details. You will 
begin to live neither from the heart nor the mind but 
from the soul, which includes both. The aim of your 
affections and of your desires will be subordinate to 
the longing of the soul itself, and you will find that, as 
the soul in each of you gains strength through its 
aspiration, it will demand and obtain all its desires. 
The spiritual law is in a measure, like the physical law 
— the incoming result will be the equivalent of the out- 
going force — and as in your daily experiences you can- 
not demonstrate this law but must live under it, so in 
the soul's life you may not realize the truth of your 
progress but you are living its law. 

For soul growth, unlike that of body and mind, is 
not under its law but is its law, and this law is individ- 
ual, is the soul itself. From the moment that you 
consciously enter upon the soul life you are, yourself, 
the force that you use. The best analogy is that of 
the sun ; its heat is not its breath but itself, its rays a 
part of it. The body is the instrument of your breath- 
ing — the soul uses no instrument when once it has 
entered life as an individual. The body and mind 
were its instruments, and remain so as long as it func- 



UNITY 2 1 

tions upon this plane, but the soul, as such, upon its 
own plane is itself both the instrument and that which 
it produces. 

Thus, in aspiration souls meet as separate, but be- 
come one in the fact that they breathe as it were 
together, and in combination as an undivided force act 
on their own and all other planes at once. Upon the 
wings, then, of unselfish aspiration rise to the greatest 
height possible to you, and as you rise you will gain in- 
crease of life, which is in itself blessedness, and you will 
realize that you are one with all souls whose aspirations 
vibrate with your own. 



ABOUT RENUNCIATION 

DENUNCIATION is the law, because only in over- 
coming can the soul gain strength to stand alone. 
Efforts at self-conquest are in reality dependent upon 
the longing of the soul for individual existence. For, 
so long as it is content to be involved in the intricacies 
of matter, so long it will sleep. The contented, self- 
satisfied man or woman will be let alone, the soul in 
them is not yet aroused. Sorrow must first awaken it, 
and discontent do its work. 

The first step is taken in the new life when the old 
delights fail to satisfy, and this moment of awakening 
may come early in life or later, in accordance with 
experience. The prenatal life of the child has its 
parallel in this antechamber, as it were, of soul exis- 
tence. For the soul is not dead in reality, but, like the 
maiden, sleepeth ; bound over by the external rela- 
tions in which its earthly existence is entangled. 

We speak now, however, to souls that are at least 
awakened, and we bid you consider what value the 
renunciations you have made really have, They are 



ABOUT RENUNCIATION 23 

the growing pains of spirit, and without them the soul 
would remain a dwindled weakling ; but let it be re- 
membered that there is no value other than this in the 
giving up of those things that are dear to the child of 
man. For, when once the soul is fully come to birth 
and knows itself as one, apart from all others, the 
path of renunciation widens into the path of action, 
and in the soul's life as in that of the child comes the 
hour of puberty. Childish things must now give place 
to those of nobler worth and the soul, alive to its own 
value and destiny, must claim as its birthright the 
powers of its divinity. 

To renounce its divine privileges, as it has renounced 
its material desires, would leave it a mere inert princi- 
ple. It must now assert itself as of value, and this 
assertion takes on form other than that of sacrifice. It 
is, in a word, effort that is now demanded of it. Fight! 
While in renunciation the powers of the soul have been 
in use in certain ways, the sacrifice of selfish interests 
has brought with it a certain inward calm and an 
actual possession, for in losing his life the disciple has 
found it. But in the battle now to be waged upon the 
inner plane there is no immediate gain, for it is the 
inner shrine that has now to be defended from those 
unseen enemies that war upon the soul. 

It is in the thought world that the battle rages, and 
unless the soul can gain and keep the mastery here, its 
divine powers are forever cramped and maimed, Here 



24 THREE-FOLD PATH OF PEACE 

are no obvious enemies, all is subtle, the soul's exist- 
ence is not in danger, it is the character of its divinest 
impulses that is involved. The soul has now come 
under another law — its evolution is not by sacrifice but 
by conquest of itself. Not until every thought responds 
to Divine Harmony can the soul achieve union ; not 
until the battle ground is swallowed up can this union 
be final. That is to say, not until every thought, every 
aspiration, every breath of the soul is Love can it real- 
ize itself as part of the Eternal and Divine Love. 

The reason is obvious to those who like yourselves 
have been taught the law of vibration under which you 
live. Every selfish thought is a discord, and, until sel- 
fishness is overcome upon the inner plane by Love, the 
soul is not free. As renunciation has brought about 
the soul's birth, (that is, under the law of sacrifice the 
divine life begins,) so effort to disentangle self from sel- 
fishness is the essential element in the soul's progress. 
Selfish action is not the snare for those who instinc- 
tively turn from the lower path, but selfish thought, 
even of its own progress, is the enemy to be over- 
come. 



VI 

"TWO OR THREE" 

TN the heart of each of you is a dominating desire ; 
and in this desire lies the seed of the future ; 
from it will spring all work, worthy or unworthy. 
What, then, to-day, children of our expectation, is the 
great desire underlying your thoughts ? 

Our work bears little relation to the personal. Lay 
aside, therefore, the consideration of personal desires, 
which come and go, which are but passing gusts, so to 
speak, and seek out the longing of your individual soul. 
That which is personal to you shall fade away, but 
that which is yourself, in its yearning, upreaching, 
longing, shall reach us and endure. The personal 
wish may remain unanswered, but no longing of the 
individual soul will ever be disregarded by us ; for in 
the inner world of aspiration every echo reaches our 
listening ears, every upreaching desire, every aspira- 
tion mingles with our own and 77iust be heard of us. 

What, then, ask yourselves, is the desire that brings 
you together ? If, in very truth, it is of the spirit, to 
spirit only will it come. It must be void of all that 
pertains to the personal life, and yet of that life it must 



26 THREE-FOLD PATH OF PEACE 

be both inspiration and guide. For your desire is the 
treasure, and where the treasure is will the heart be 
also, where the heart is action will follow. 

In this lies the whole mystery of godliness. As the 
needle follows the magnet, so must the disciple follow 
that hidden desire, unknown it may be to himself. As 
flowers turn to the sun, as trees to water, so will the 
life turn towards that which is in the hidden chamber. 
Hidden indeed it is in mystic speech, that little fire of 
aspiration which becomes the flame in the secret 
chamber, and in this flame all dross must be burnt 
away — all that is of the lesser, temporal, ever-chang- 
ing self, to leave only that which is one with purity and 
love. Thus we see that the desire which brings you 
together must be at once both pure and free — free in 
spirit that you may be bound together in love. 

Love alone is within the flame, and to it only all 
things, palpable and impalpable, are drawn. Consider 
this. What is life on your plane ? Is it not the draw- 
ing together of like elements, and the activity of those 
that are dissimilar? It is what you call molecular. 
Yes ; but, death is equally so — within its embrace is 
still activity of particles, is still the drawing together 
and activity of dissimilarity. What, then, has escaped ? 
That which, in itself, controlled both the similar and 
the dissimilar. This is the eternal, ever living princi- 
ple which we call Love. It is the Divine Energy that 
demands expression at all times and everywhere. 



"TWO OR THREE" 27 

That which is of it is eternal, that which is its mere 
external expression is temporal. Hence, every desire 
for personal advantage lacks the eternal, ever living 
principle, because it is of its expression only and not 
one with it. 

"I and my Father are one," said the Master, because 
in the pure flame of Divine Love all the personal had 
been burnt away, there remained only the Eternal 
Principle, which is one with itself, and so, universal. 
From it all things are built ; it demands, and lo ! crea- 
tion follows. In its name whatsoever ye ask shall be 
yours, but — be not deceived ; the mountains which shall 
be removed are not the material mountains of the per- 
sonal path, but the spiritual barriers of selfishness and 
pride. The soul must stand free, and its freedom will 
be in strict accordance with its desires, with those 
longings and aspirations that are, in truth, itself. 

" Desire that which is Eternal " means, then, crave 
only for that which is universal, and not personal. 
The voice of the one reaches us, the voice of the other 
is lost in the din of material sound. But it is no less 
true that, as the spiritual desire gains freedom, the 
shackles of the personal life loosen, and the difificul- 
ties that encumber the path fade away, for, free, the 
demands of the soul will liberate the personality. 



VII 

LOVE'S VEHICLES 

A LL life is energy. This you have fully learned, 
■^ Energy seeks a home, an abiding place, through 
and in which it can express itself. Behind and within 
every material object is that called by those who live 
in your world blind force. We who seek higher planes 
of consciousness accept that term in its ignorance of 
actual facts. Man can know only that which he is 
capable of accepting and assimilating. Energy or 
force appears a blind agent to those whose inner sight 
is not yet opened, but to those who, in however small 
degree, have vision, it is otherwise. They may not 
understand with the complete knowledge of the fully 
awakened, but they escape the blindness of the intel- 
lect apart from the soul's guidance. But in our little 
circle are those who at least believe, if they do not as 
yet wholly realize, that energy is Divine, and that this 
energy in expressing itself assumes many and very 
different appearances. 

Its expression is dependent upon those vehicles that 
it has fashioned for itself, and if you will replace the 
word energy or force by the vital word Love, you will 



LOVE'S VEHICLES 29 

read the message of the Universe to yourselves — Love 
as quality equally with Love as principle j Love as 
pure energy, gathering to itself the elements of its 
manifold dwellings through that law of vibration, so 
familiar to you. Love alike in stone, in rock, in crys- 
tal, as in blossom, flower, and tree ; in rushing river or 
tranquil stream ; in soaring bird or useful quadruped ; 
in savage and intelligent man as in the heart of the 
sage. Powerful in direct relation to its mode of ex- 
pression, Love is at once kingdom and king, and when 
in its highest aspects it has gained the result of all 
human experiences, it has fulfilled its mission in this 
world and seeks a better habitat. 

And that which is universal is of necessity also par- 
ticular. As force, as energy, as Love, it interpene- 
trates, and where no other principle or quality can 
enter, it will be found by those who seek, calling to 
itself its own and fulfilling in its ever changing life the 
highest law known to us in the universe. Like to Like. 
Not by that which is alien, O children, can ye be 
gathered together, not by that which disintegrates, but 
by that which forever knits together in harmony those 
who are spiritual kin. 

Love, then, let us repeat, is energy, and in the 
human heart this energy seeks to express itself in 
Freedom. Those grosser forms of its expression 
which, in your social world, bring individual discord 
and ruin, are the expression of its force when the 



30 THREE-FOLD PATH OF PEACE 

vehicle containing it has not reached the level of the 
intelligence, it then expresses itself in coarse animal 
form, but when through many experiences it has gained 
a habitat in the higher personal forms, it is converting its 
vehicle to itself, the man is becoming godlike in that he 
is in command of his own energy. 

No longer limited by mere animal instinct, he 
associates with his love energy the qualities he has 
gained through experiences that have associated them- 
selves in his Ideal. This Ideal will demand of him 
sacrifice, and ever greater sacrifice, until Love Per- 
fected rises beyond the prison house of selfishness into 
the deep vault of heavenly aspiration. Love or energy 
v/ill no longer be liberated upon the lower physical 
plane, it will demand and make a higher home for itself, 
it will express itself, upon the plane of action due to 
higher impulse. Now, in the sacred words, it has 
found "a more excellent way," a way that leads it 
away from the world of sense enjoyments to the plane 
of its own exalted longing — ever away from the claims 
of self to the demands of that whence it came, ever 
away from the many to the One which is the All. 

Its claim is no longer for satisfaction for itself. Its 
demand is for the fulfilment of all upward tending 
desires in all. As Love liberated, it goes forth that it 
may meet ; everywhere and in all things its own, and, 
meeting, become one with them — united in Love, yet 
forever individual in the expression of that energy that 



LOVE'S VEHICLES 31 

is Divine. Energy going forth as Love conquers all 
but itself, and for this reason, in the long run it is 
conqueror. Good must and does overcome evil, for 
good is energy in constructive activity and evil is 
energy in dissipation — the one attracts all to itself, the 
other repels all from itself that it may re-form its home. 

Energy, then, liberated is Love ; but energy still seek- 
ing liberation is not as yet all good. Ever expansive. 
Love interpenetrates everywhere. The loving act, the 
loving word breathe the loving thought that itself is 
energy. Carry it with you, let it permeate your atmos- 
phere, let it range above, around, beyond you, until it 
shall become one in expression with yourself, and, car- 
ried upon its wings, you shall enter into that perfected 
Union of which you dream. 

When Love meets Love, the soul has gained its home 
forevermore, and expresses itself as Energy Liberated 
and Liberating. The finite, the microcosm, has be- 
come the infinite, the macrocosm, and "it and the 
Father are one." 



VIII 

THE POWER OF LOVE 

'T^HE vital power of Love is dependent upon the 
nature of Being. Life, as we have taught you, 
is an energy dependent for expression upon rates of 
vibration. Now, again we remind you that this energy 
has in the main three modes of expression correspond- 
ing to body, mind, and soul, or as you might sa)^, 
to material, immaterial, and spiritual planes. 

Action is the vehicle of the material world, thought 
the vehicle of the immaterial world, and aspiration, 
which in the last analysis you will find to be love, is 
the spiritual vehicle, the most rapid vibratory expres- 
sion upon which thought, the immaterial vehicle, is 
winged to heaven. Further than aspiration it is not 
possible to go consciously. In trance it may be that 
higher regions are reached, but with that you are not 
concerned. 

We want to explain clearly that, whereas these modes 
of expression are different, these vibrations of widely 
different quality, that which lies behind, of which they 
are in turn vehicles, is the same always, everywhere, 
and forever. This universal insistent principle is what 



THE POWER OF LOVE 33 

is called by you and ourselves Love, but the expression 
to us is not at all what it ordinarily means to you. 

Love, in our view, is that which forever combines. 
It is as truly in the mountain as in the heart, it is at 
once law and execution, that which attracts, repels, and 
combines. "It lieth at the heart " of universe as truly 
as in the heart of man. Now, the whole of spiritual 
evolution is dependent upon this principle. That which 
to you is coarse and unlovely is not less its expression 
than the ideals of the world of thought. But the 
practical rendering of this principle in daily life is all 
that is of deep concern to yourselves. So much we 
say that you may comprehend how and why Love does 
and must dominate your lives. 

In proportion as you love you realize that only as 
Love can you express your entire self ; only then through 
this expression can you enter into that Eternal Union in 
which all is good, only, that is, when Love as quality 
gained through experience is one with Love, the prin- 
ciple of Universal Being. Existence, as you know it, is 
Love only in the making, and when you attempt to 
obey the universal principle but are not at one with it 
through lack of love or lack of its expression, you fall 
backward and make no progress in spiritual evolu- 
tion. You are in fact laggards. 

Every molecule is an expression of this law — it 
either adds to its being or loses its place ; it must by 
going out attract and make its own that which is in 



34 THREE-FOLD PATH OF PEACE 

the same vibratory order. So with plant, tree, and 
flower ; so in the animal world ; so throughout what 
you call nature ; like calls to like, and results occur in 
strict accordance with the force of love that is in- 
volved. You should realize clearly, therefore, that all 
progress is dependent upon the amount of latent force 
or Love involved. 

As in evolutionary sequence we rise to the plane of 
man, we find this force expressing itself in determining 
and regulating Sex. This is the first mystery on your 
plane in the action of opposites as determining results. 
From the dawn of human evolution the play of oppo- 
site forces has resulted in unions typical of that final 
union of the self with its Principle, which is the last 
effect of universal experience. Every step on the 
upward path is a step of effort at reconciliation of con- 
trary currents of feeling or desire, and as you progress 
you become aware that back of these conflicting feel- 
ings is a force that belongs to neither singly, yet is 
inherent in each. This neutral, all containing force 
is Love, and in proportion as you conquer through 
aspiration is it released on higher planes of conscious- 
ness. When finally your aspiration is to love worthily 
and universally, you are becoming a conscious, spiritual 
individuality, in full possession of your birthright — no 
longer baffled by the opposition of your desires, but 
one with them in that all are resolved into the one 
which is Love, " I and the Father are one " in thought. 



THE POWER OF LOVE 35 

Love conquers and becomes the Vision, in which the 
joy of one is the joy of the universal life. Strive, then, 
for such love as we depict, from which all thought of 
self or desire has been purified ; so shall you in your 
very hearts know and recognize the Father. So shall 
you rise from the plane of life and death to immor- 
tality. 

The true resurrection is the uprising of the self 
against its limitations, and these limitations are three- 
fold — of the flesh, as in childhood, of the mind as in 
manhood, of the spirit, as in mature life. Do not doubt 
that in the plane of spirit there are also limitations to 
be overcome by those who desire final and complete 
victory, for that means the mastery of that higher self 
which has struggled for freedom and which in attain- 
ment must conquer lonelmcss, free from even those 
spiritual desires which were the conditions of its 
progress. 

" HIGHER, STILL HIGHER." 



IX 

THE LAW OF GROWTH 

T TNDER the mysterious law of growth lies the deep 
secret of the soul's existence. Many are your ways 
of expressing this fact, but few are correct in the sur- 
mise. Souls, Beloved, are borti, and are not, in our 
sense, eternal of necessity. The soul is immortal, yes, 
because when once the stature of a human being is 
attained, the soul is no longer merely embryo ; but it 
is not necessarily eternal in your complete sense. That 
which divides it from all else and renders it immortal 
is also that which makes its eternal persistence depend- 
ent upon quality. Quality is the only eternal posses- 
sion, of which nothing can rob the soul. 

Ask yourselves, therefore, what qualities are eternal, 
and you will find them few. Love you will reply, but 
love is many-hued — most of it perishes, as you know, 
even here, for the great twin of love is sorrow, and sor- 
row is but for a moment ; grief, love's language, becomes 
mute. Yet, mute it leaves its trace in quality, and love 
has been enriched in loss — but not in its eternal 
aspect. 



THE LAW OF GROWTH 37 

In one aspect only is love as the soul's possession 
eternal — it is in that which it creates as a habitation 
for itself. For love is activity, and only in energy or 
activity can it continue to exist, when (as you know 
will be the case,) object after object of its demands is 
gone. Love personal will not continue to eternity ; 
love purified by activity will persist. For Love given as 
energy is eternal, and partakes of the eternal quality 
of Being itself. 

Love, let us say, is the soul's atmosphere, and as 
moisture expresses itself in dew, it will express itself 
in act. The key note to all religions is Love, because 
without it there is Jio eternal life. It is the soul's expres- 
sion, and apart from it there is no endurance in the 
Eternal Evolution of Spirit. The birth of the soul into 
the higher or eternal life is that moment of its expres- 
sion when, rising above selfishness, it reaches, for the 
time, those whose life is love, whose objects are eter- 
nal, whose quality is selfless. 

And this attainment of the New Birth is dependent 
upon the desire of the soul for growth. It longs, and 
longing loves, and loving gives. We may call this the 
Trinity of Eternal Life — Longing, Loving, Giving — as 
giving, loving, energizing, or, let us say, seeking, find- 
ing, knowing — and these three become one in effort. 

This is why the soul's life is spoken of as struggle. 
Through effort it pushes its way upward to the Light 
which is Life. As the plant finds its way through the 



38 THREE-FOLD PATH OF PEACE 

soil, as it seeks its nourishment in accordance with its 
need, so the soul finds its habitat in the darkness of the 
physical body and its nourishment in pain until, through 
effort, it, too, reaches the Light. 

At first this effort, this struggle, is for self-assertion, 
as in the child it ever will be, but as the soul grows the 
endeavor takes on other character — it is now for self- 
conquest, for the denial of the temporary, and for the 
satisfaction of its eternal quality. It has risen to the 
higher plane of consciousness, and upon this plane 
energy asserts itself as Love Universal and not as love 
personal. 

The Path has opened, the soul has glimpses of a 
glorious beyond. It struggles onward to the Great 
Light, to find as it rises that this Light, in which 
it shall forever lose and yet forever gain itself, is the 
White Light of Love made perfect. Free from all 
thought of the self, it is, one forever with those other 
selves whose struggle is to give, careless of what they 
themselves receive — selves one in energy and forever 
one in the Eternal Being of God. 



X 

LOVE'S TRINITY 

'X'HE chord of Love is threefold. In this lies all the 
mystery of Being. Only in its perfect blending 
is the All expressed. As we have taught you that 
there are in man three planes or aspects of conscious- 
ness, so must Love, to be perfect, express and contain 
within itself these three. The material plane is ex- 
pressed in material desires. The immaterial finds its 
expression in thought. The spiritual can be known 
only in aspiration, which is its form of desire. 

Now, these three are one in essential element, and 
this essential element is one with the threefold expres- 
sion of it — it is energy or love. Do not then despise 
these desires that upon the material plane of conscious- 
ness belong to it. They are in themselves good. 
Only when as encroaching on the best welfare of 
others they lose the essential element of pure Love 
are they to be repressed. Beloved, there is no value 
in repression for its own sake. Renunciation for 
renunciation's sake is valueless, and every material 
effort that involves loss on the part of another breaks 
in itself the eternal law of Love. 



40 THREE-FOLD PATH OF PEACE 

It is, therefore easily seen, that the soul struggling 
for light, longing for higher planes of experience, must 
sacrifice at the call of that which draws it on. Hence, 
the world of material consciousness is full of sacrifice, 
for it demands, in liberation, escape from all that can 
hold or bind the soul in its onward progress. On the 
plane of immaterial consciousness, yet greater is the 
opposing element, i, e., the conquest of thought is 
harder than the conquest of physical desires. The 
mind is the great battlefield of righteousness. Behind 
the act lies that from which the act proceeded. The 
mind is, as it were, the womb of external circumstance. 
The aspiring soul is the embryo around which closes 
the atmosphere of immaterial unseen force from which 
it draws its sustenance. 

In the atmosphere of Love, all that is detrimental 
to the soul of others is evil, and every alien thought is 
at once the enemy of the growing soul and of all other 
souls. Thus, in the mind lie the eternal influences for 
good and evil — those desires, hopes, and longings that 
make up the man. If any one of these is for self, it at 
once contracts the atmosphere in which self is living, 
and shuts the soul up within its own barriers of 
thought. There is no escape from its own essence. 

On the material plane, desire is overcome by renun- 
ciation begotten in the world of thought. Upon the 
plane of the mind's consciousness a thousand hopes 
and fears accompany accomplishment. Not until 



LOVE'S TRINITY 41 

every thought is unselfish, free from self-seeking, and 
devoted to the good of all others can the soul be 
free. In other words, it can enter upon the spiritual 
plane only when it is so thoroughly inbred into love for 
others that that which formed its thought body, built 
for itself from the ever living thoughts that are itself, 
is of the quality of the home it desires to enter. 

Only Love can enter where all is love, and only 
when this love is threefold and expressed in equal 
measure upon every plane can the soul claim as its 
own freedom and union with its Source. And this is 
so, as you will see, of necessity, for like only can blend 
with like. By the eternal law of vibration, energy can 
meet energy only in equality of cadence, and, as Love, 
it is rhythmic in its final expression, and is and must 
be perfect harmony, whether you express it in terms of 
light, sound, or flame ; for all three are one in eternal 
essence and likeness, and the three in one is God. 



T 



XI 

THE LONELY WAY 

HE man or woman who would enter the innermost 
path must be alone in spirit. To the aspiring 
soul the way opens and for a while broadens out 
into meadows flowery with the blossoms of love, for 
the affections are, of all emotions, the first to be 
awakened, but these very affections are the cause, as 
the soul advances, of its loneliness. 

For the soul to vibrate in its own key is to be virtu- 
ally alone, and it is along while before a solitary vibra- 
tory note can become a true harmony in which the 
soul shall know bliss. It is obvious that this must 
be so. To each soul there is one easier pathway 
pointed out by that within itself which has individual- 
ized it, and in following this, its own inherent longing, 
it finds itself apart upon its own path, which deviates 
from that of all other souls. 

In the main, the path for all is the same for it is al- 
ways the path of self-conquest, of the overcoming of the 
personal desires of the lower self, but, the experiences 
which come to the struggling soul, separate it as an 
individual, from all others. To it alone they come, 
and the lessons they teach are that man's only. But 



THREE-FOLD PATH OF PEACE 43 

in this fact of the soul's loneliness lies, as it were 
imbedded in a gem, the central fact of his value as 
individual. He is no longer one in a class. He is him- 
self becoming a nucleus for power, a dynamo, if you 
will, from which shall emanate Wisdom and Love, 

The loneliness of the growing soul is, then, its own 
patent of worth. It is becoming, so to speak, a star 
in the galaxy of the Eternal Sphere of those Immor- 
tals whose light is the light of men. And be it remem- 
bered that those heights from which the struggling 
beams of the soul's radiance shine are not above him 
but within him. They are the kingdom conquered by 
his will, into which he enters to find himself again in 
touch with his own, with other souls whose aims are 
selfless and whose desires are pure. 

The higher steps of the Path of Bliss are all made 
by the disciple himself. They are not rock hewn by 
the efforts of others, they are not an inheritance from 
the past, they are the pioneer efforts of his future, and 
every one of them costs him something of loss in 
promise of future gain. One by one all allurements 
are left behind, that glamor which ignorance sheds 
upon facts is lost, and the soul faces itself as its own 
reality. It learns what is its own, and loses one by 
one all that belongs to others. It stands, as it were, 
naked in its own sight, bereft of all but that which it 
has gained for itself, which is interwoven into the very 
texture of its existence. 



44 THE LONELY WAY 

But in this loss are the true gain and glory of knowl- 
edge. The eye of perception is opened — that mystic 
eye of all inner light which reveals the Truth to the 
watching, waiting soul. Then all knowledge becomes 
the possession of the soul that knows itself. The mists 
of illusion have been dispelled, the true Light is recog- 
nized, and the inner knowledge of the Kingdom of 
God is the priceless possession of the soul. 

Separation, loneliness, the solitary experience have 
done their work. Isolated, the soul has made its own 
acquaintance, has recognized itself as one in the im- 
mensity of Eternity, and in knowing this has gained 
the revelation that all else is within itself. Every 
experience, every pain, every joy, every sin, every 
effort is itself, and is all that remains of the old life 
of sensation and desire. 

Thus, clothed in knowledge of itself, it has gained 
Wisdom, and, in very truth, knows as it is known. In 
losing all it has found itself one with that Sea whence 
it came, ever united through experience with the 
Eternal Source. Out of darkness has come light ; out 
of sorrow, joy ; out of loneliness, union with all that 
is ; out of struggle, power ; out of loss, Illumination ; 
out of love, Love in its all embracing divinity. 



XII 

PURITY 

TN absolute purity there is no distinction. All is of 
one quality, and this quality is in a sense colorless. 
That is to say, the essential character of purity pre- 
vails, unaffected by the elements that may play around, 
over, or above it. You speak of pure air and pure 
water, meaning that which is uncontaminated by alien 
influences, influences perhaps in themselves not unde- 
sirable, but inimical to the standard of purity. So, in 
analogous fashion, we speak of purity of thought, 
which, in strictest analysis, will mean purity of that 
which underlies the activity of thought, which we can 
call, for the sake of clearness, motive, that which 
directs and seeks to govern thought. 

Purity of thought means, then, pure or uncontam- 
inated motive. How can we feel sure of the purity of 
the motive that actuates us, and is, as it were, the 
dividing line between ourselves and others ? We may 
all live upon the same general lines and all think in 
the same general way, but there will be that which 
divides our actions and our thoughts from those of all 
others. Thinking and acting in unison, we may at 



46 THREE-FOLD PATH OF PEACE 

times override these dividing lines and become as one 
in action and in thought, but even in this union there 
will be underlying differences of motive. 

When, therefore, we aspire for purity, what do we 
really desire ? Absolute purity will be colorless, 
devoid of difference and distinction, and hence, as far 
as our own perceptions go, imperceptible in effect and 
in result. The only reality in it, in the sense of force, 
will be in that of which it is expression. Purity of 
body is one thing, mental purity is another thing, and 
purity of soul is yet different from either. And it is 
not difficult to realize this. Purity of body is depend- 
ent upon action ; purity of mind upon thought ; purity 
of soul upon feeling. For purity of action, we must 
have that which underlies action, desire. For purity 
of thought, we must have that which underlies 
thought, motive. For purity of soul, we must have 
that which underlies soul or expresses soul, and that is 
feeling. 

When, through training and experience, the disciple 
gains control of the mind and it becomes only the 
instrument of the higher self or soul, he realizes this. 
By being master of the mind, he controls mind and 
body, and, in understanding them, purifies and dedi- 
cates them to the purposes of soul, which is expressed 
in feeling. 

It is thus plain, if we continue our analysis, that 
purity, when we aspire for it, includes and defines 



PURITY 47 

three ideals, and so includes them that they are as 
one, indistinguishable, for feeling or soul, purified, 
governs mind or thought purified, and mind or 
thought purified governs action. That which we/<?^/ 
in the innermost recesses of being, we are, and that 
which we are, as feeling, divides us from all other 
entities who also feel. Through feeling we are in- 
dividualized, and it is in the purity of this individuality 
that we finally attain Peace. 

That which as feeling separated us from the uni- 
versal was the germ or impulse of our individualiza- 
tion, and in its differentiation from all else was the 
beginning of experience. The culmination of experi- 
ence is the re-emergence of feeling purified by such 
experience and freed from all that, in gaining it has 
tainted it. Feeling, crushed, limited, and overborne 
during the soul's evolution, is one with it, and remains 
as the final proof of its divine origin when the disciple 
enters upon those trackless heights that lead to 
Eternal Bliss, for bliss is feeling in possession of itself. 



XIII 

THE PERFECT DEED 

" DY their acts ye shall know them," but the act is 
■^"^ only a temporary expression of an eternal im- 
pulse. As the body clothes the soul, as it is in reality 
the expression of that soul, so the act is but the body 
of the thought, and it is in this way that the law of 
Karma acts, and always must — not, as you so often 
ignorantly imagine, bringing to the man the result of 
his outward act, but in truth bringing to flower the 
seed of his thought. 

" Judge not," says the Master, because in judgment 
you are regarding the outward expression only and not 
the inward impulse. To know this is to have wisdom, 
which becomes charity. When the eye of true percep- 
tion opens, the world of men and things changes com- 
pletely in character, because the vision penetrates 
beyond the act and you know what is in the hearts of 
men, the springs of action. And when you have once 
learned this you will cease to regard the acts of a 
man's life as for or against him, for you will realize 
that what you call good and evil had its origin in no 



THE PERFECT DEED 49 

act, but in that which gave rise to the act, of which it 
may be but an imperfect expression. 

It is for this reason that the lives of Those Who 
Know are always ordered lives, of health of body, 
strength of will, sweetness of love, because they 
through manifold experiences, have reached harmony 
on these planes of being. The act in them is the per- 
fect expression of a threefold force, and this force is, 
in other words, the energy that is Love, expressing 
itself through perfect Will in deed, which is Power, 
and the trinity of Love, Will, and Wisdom is as one. 

Thus, in human life the struggle of the disciple is to 
so relate his primary impulse of energy or love to its 
expression that the result will be perfect harmony in 
act ; and the union of the three impulses in soul, 
mind, and body will proclaim itself in Loving Deed, 

Cease, then, to weary your thought with the deed or 
its result. Rather purify its source, and having puri- 
fied it, know that the act when it comes must be in 
itself the final result of that primary impulse. That it 
shall have result is true, but the result, like the act, 
will be related to that which impelled it, and will bring 
blessing even in seeming darkness. 

This is the secret of all peace and of all progress — to 
know that the temporary cannot extend beyond time 
and to realize that only in the application of eternal 
principles to temporary actions is eternal result possi- 
ble. " Live in the Eternal " therefore, means, seek the 



50 THREE-FOLD PATH OF PEACE 

cause of your actions in that which is behind the deed, 
and so live that each thought is the child of its union 
with Love or Divine Energy. Then shall that which is 
of time obey that which is eternal, and through the law 
of Karma or causation Love shall bring forth Love, the 
Lily of Purity shall bloom in the mire of the world, if 
its seed has been sown in the soil of the heart. 

Never judge others for their acts, which are but the 
imperfect expression of their inner being, but judge 
yourselves by relating your own acts to that which 
induced them. Thus shall you remain humble in heart, 
knowing well your imperfection, and striving ever to 
purify the affections and the will, that they may be at 
one with Divine Energy. 

This is the union to be desired, this the attainment 
of perfect Yoga, this the reward of those who, ever 
aspiring, ever loving, ever striving, shall enter into the 
joy of their Lord. Or, in other words, through this 
union of the innermost impulse with its outward ex- 
pression shall the disciple know and realize that which 
makes him one with the race in all essential elements. 
He is at once one with all men and ruler of all, as he 
has become lord over himself. 



XIV 

SELF-EXPRESSION 

TT is true that, to fully attain, perfect union on all 
planes of being must be sought. But, Beloved, 
" the flesh is weak," and many who desire to conquer 
find this true as they progress upon the path and feel 
themselves masters of the lower passions and desires. 
Beyond these are the latent motives that made the 
desires active, and these motives still govern until the 
second plane of thought is also mastered by Love. 

Love is the master-key on all planes. When in the 
body all selfish longing has yielded to thoughts of 
another, when passion, which desires only the posses- 
sion of its object, is no longer dominant, when love of 
beauty has become love of soul, when touch has yielded 
to higher feeling, the first gigantic growth of the per- 
sonal life has received a blow. But, if these personal 
motives find expression on a higher plane, it is the out- 
ward only that is overcome, the citadel still swarms 
with the foes of holiness. 

The effort of the neophyte is the conquest of the 
lower self, the effort of the initiate is the conquest of 



52 THREE-FOLD PATH OF PEACE 

those higher selves who in their turn are under the 
old dominion and whose deliverance from captivity is 
still more difficult. You can sum up the temptations 
of the physical plane in the old words, " the world, the 
flesh, and the devil." They are all objective tempta- 
tions assailing the physical self and its relations, but 
when the inner man is aroused, when birth has taken 
place, and the ego dimly recognizes itself, progress is 
dependent upon other things. Another warfare must 
be waged, other armour must protect the struggler, 
for the old defences will prove of no value. 

But, while this is true, it is no less true that the un- 
derlying enemy is the same. It is the lower self in 
other guise, asserting itself as against all other selves. 
It is still drawing to itself that which it desires, rather 
than giving from itself of all it longs for to the 
whole. 

If we go back to the first principle of incarnation, we 
see that this must be so. To incarnate, the ego draws 
all the materials it needs to itself for self-expression, 
and in its earlier experiences gives up nothing but ever 
draws more and more to itself, until its aim is accomp- 
lished and it has constructed a home of matter for itself. 
When all that this home can give has been attained, it is 
still a dwelling place for the soul, even when desire 
turns to higher things, for the motive impelling it is the 
same. 

It still seeks self-expression, and the disciple finds 



SELF-EXPRESSION 53 

that, although lust of the senses is overcome, the mind 
remains full of selfishness, the aim however dis- 
guised is still for self. One might say that all thought 
is necessarily limited by desire for self-expression, a 
limitation imposed by its instrument, the brain, which 
continually deceives and perplexes, and renders spirit- 
ual progress difficult. None the less it is possible even 
upon the thought plane to attain to vision, and so over- 
come its restraining power. But this vision is rare, 
and can become frequent only when thought is trans- 
muted into longing or aspiration, in which the motive 
of limited self-expression is overcome. 

For this reason the path of devotion may lead to 
the higher goal, even when there has been no conquest 
of the intellect, because the first element of pure devo- 
tion is forgetfulness of self in worship ; but the initiate 
knows intuitively that he must possess all keys and 
overcome on all planes if he would in the end attain 
full union. 

This is the three-fold aim of the single motive. 
When once that motive is so purified that only Holi- 
ness can be its goal, then all littleness vanishes, then 
the temptations of all three planes are known, and as 
they are known there arises in the soul the lowliness of 
Wisdom, which can never condemn (for it recognizes 
in itself all that is in others) and the beatitude of Love, 
for its union is with all, and it can never again suffer 
the hunger of the soul still seeking satisfaction. It 



54 THREE-FOLD PATH OF PEACE 

has lost all that claims, to obtain all that gives, it 
no longer draws to itself, it liberates love on every 
plane, and in liberating it becomes energy expressed 
as Love. 



XV 

LOVE UNIVERSAL 

'yHERE is no such lever as Love, Those who 
have been more or less imbued with Eastern 
thought substitute the idea of Compassion, but com- 
passion is only one expression of vital energy, while 
energy itself can be described by the word Love. 
Compassion is love acting in accordance with its initial 
impulse, but to understand love fully we must analyze 
not only its initial impulse but that which it implies. 

To the outer senses pain, injury, and loss are 
the only expressions possible to the soul seeking 
experience. The disciple entering the Path is not met 
by what seems to him compassion. Far from it. In 
vain he asks for the hand that shall lift him above the 
stringent circumstance in which he may find himself ; 
in vain he demands the light that to his idea must be 
somewhere beyond him. He discovers neither justice 
nor compassion as he struggles in an environment of 
pain, physical, mental, or spiritual. Compassion does 
not reach him and he despairs of any help, even when, 
in his soul, he believes that he is led. 

Lofn 



56 THREE-FOLD PATH OF PEACE 

Compassion exists as quality, but we must seek 
further for that of which it is an expression. We are 
forced back upon our earliest conception of Love, a 
conception "broadening as evolution proceeds until it 
becomes that in which all things move and know that 
they move. This is the lesson for us all. Love, which 
lieth at the heart of the universe, is all compre- 
hensive and not to be described as one or another 
quality. Darkness may express it as well as light, and 
Love that withholds help may be greater than love 
that yields compassionate assistance before actual 
need arises, and in the struggle, the soul learns that 
Love is inherent in pain, and not necessarily that 
which delivers from it. Through it, indeed, the light 
shines at intervals, but suffering ceases only when the 
entire lesson has been learned. And the reason is 
obvious. Pain is, in fact, separation, aberration, in- 
harmony, and it is only in separation that it is possible 
to realize what is in fact a possession. 

So automatic is man that his very body is unob- 
served by him in hours of ease and comfort. It has 
become so much himself that he no longer regards it, 
but when it fails to serve his ends he recog- 
nizes its limitations. So with the soul. The soul in 
happiness takes no account of itself, but when sorrows 
come it discovers that which it lacks. Again and 
again, through inharmony, it seeks the source of 
peace, and through discord learns the nature of har- 



LOVE UNIVERSAL 57 

mony. It finally discovers that pain is separation, and 
that when, through effort, harmony is gained once 
more, it is with added strength to act, to express, to 
know. 

Herein, then, lies the lesson and meaning of life — 
the soul learns in separation, on many planes, of which 
three are now well known to you. Upon the material 
plane pain means separation ; upon the immaterial plane 
separation means doubt ; upon the spiritual plane it 
means loss. The disciple, through the threefold disci- 
pline, learns the threefold lesson of the true nature of 
Love or Energy, and realizes, as from a height, what 
he has gained. 

The one has become in experience three, the three 
have regained through experience the one. Separa- 
tion, the fall into matter, has been succeeded by union, 
the ascent into spirit, and this ascent would be impos- 
sible if no obstacles existed, for Energy becomes an 
^ggJ'egation in order to produce those effects which we 
call Life in its external aspect ; Life on the three 
planes, ever changing yet ever assimilating, until man, 
rising to continued experience upon the spiritual plane, 
attains full union with the Energy that he expresses, 
and realizes Blessedness — the Beatitude of perfect 
equilibrium, the entering of that which expresses 
energy or love into that which is Energy, the ever 
existent Love in Possession of Itself. 



XVI 

THE FAREWELL WORD 

A ND the whole of our teaching may be summed up 
in the word service, all-inclusive, all-containing. 
When the soul is the slave of physical activity, the 
response will be in terms of philanthropy — doing good 
in activities for others. On the mental plane the 
response will be in terms of teaching, and the written 
and spoken word will reveal the leading of the Master. 
On the spiritual plane where we would fain guide you, 
the Life itself in its three-fold longings will be the 
response. 

Thus from the deep desire of the soul will arise the 
fulfilment of its longings upon all planes of being — 
many as yet dimly known to you but in the main 
following the line of progress made, and as in each 
successive step the desire will change and become 
more elevated, you will find in progress a corre- 
sponding change of motive ; and action will be the 
result not of physical or mental desire but of spiritual 
longing. You will find, as it were, motive un- 
veiled ; that which is highest will guide that which i^ 



THE FAREWELL WORD 59 

lowest, and the act will in itself express the deepest 
yearnings of the purified soul. 

Then you will no longer renounce the things of the 
flesh for a higher goal, no longer yield the joy of 
mental argument at the desire for truth only, but all 
will give place to the highest longing of the soul for 
full expression. All lesser things will fall away, burnt 
out by the purifying fire of the higher love of the soul 
and you will no longer renounce,because naught is yours, 
all has been given for that which is the true expression 
of yourself, and vision replaces search. The soul 
knows and sees and hears and remembers, it no longer 
acts by fits and starts, the vision is no longer rare, the 
very air the soul breathes is instinct with Love, and 
its vibration determines all beneath it, until thought is 
purified, and act is but purified thought embodied. 

This is health of soul ; the robust soul demands and 
obtains satisfaction for itself upon all planes, and in 
demanding, expands, and so, losing all that contracts 
the self, throws off bondage to the coarser vibrations 
of matter, and breathes its own atmosphere. Then, 
no longer separated by those confusions that make up 
the material world of sense and thought, it is at 
home — " in the bosom of the Father " as you say, 
or, as we would fain express it, one with all that like 
itself is free, and, in liberty, goes forth to serve — no 
longer chained and cribbed by baffling contrarieties, 
but lord, in and through love purified, of its kingdom, 



6o THREE-FOLD PATH OF PEACE 

which kingdom, as you know, is threefold and is, in 
part, made with hands. 

Go forth, then, Beloved, and on the threefold plane 
known to you work, each in his own way, in accordance 
with his own deepest longing, on all three paths of the 
great highway of souls, finding in duty, in renunciation, 
and in Love opportunities for work, knowing that the 
act fulfilled is but a response to the longing awakened, 
and finding in the satisfaction of that innermost long- 
ing that Peace that the world can neither give nor 
take away. 

The response to that longing is Blessedness here 
and now — a blessedness that, carrying its vibrations 
into every place, falls upon the hearts of others like 
healing dew, and brings forth at every moment of its 
life new joy and fresh delight. A Blessedness that is 
not for time or occasion, for meeting or for parting, 
but is in itself Eternal, growing with the soul as 
innermost and yet enveloping possession, its self, 
its aroma, its expression, its power, its sweetness, its 
abiding place and home. 

And all who possess this know of a surety, that as 
the Father is in them so are they in all, and that the 
Divine Love, guiding, blessing, following, serving, is 
with them here or there, then or now, near or far. 

And so, for the time, Farewell. 



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